Today's trade is something I don't do much of: a pairs trade, but with an options twist.
A typical pairs trade goes like this: You find two stocks that typically trade together, but for some reason, they've diverged. So, you buy the underperforming stock and short-sell an equal dollar amount of the outperforming stock. This is typically a market-neutral trade where you're betting the values of the two stocks will eventually resume their normal parity, resulting in a net profit from the two trades.
We have a situation developing right now that screams pairs trade to me, but I'm going to do it with options.
In this scan, we look to identify the strongest growth stocks as they climb the market-cap ladder from small- to mid- to large- and, ultimately, to mega cap status (over $200B).
Once they graduate from small-cap to mid-cap status (over $2B), they come on our radar. Likewise, when they surpass the roughly $30B mark, they roll off our list.
But the scan doesn't just end there.
We only want to look at the strongest growth industries in the market, as that is typically where these potential 50-baggers come from.
Some of the best performers in recent decades – stocks like Priceline, Amazon, Netflix, Salesforce, and myriad others – would have been on this list at some point during their journey to becoming the market behemoths they are today.
When you look at the stocks in our table, you'll notice we're only focused on Technology and Growth industry groups such as Software, Semiconductors, Online...
We have to be selective out here. The names that were working last year are not the names or sectors that are working this year.
Meanwhile, downtrends that have been in place for a year or more are starting to find their footing. And when you add in a relatively high short interest, if the worst is now behind us, then names like the one I'm trading today have the potential to surprise to the upside.